In an automatic winder, a winding package rotates while having surface contact with a traverse drum positively rotated and winds a yarn thereon while making this rotation movement. According to the conventional method, when yarn breakage takes place, the drum is braked to stop the drum and the package is stopped with stopping of the drum.
According to this conventional stopping method, the package is stopped with stopping of a drum while the package is kept in contact with the drum. Therefore, while the amount of a yarn is small, the package is stopped with stopping of the drum, but when the amount of the wound yarn is increased, the package is not immediately stopped only by stopping the drum and the package continues to rotate by inertia even after the drum is stopped, with the result that a slip is caused between the package and the surface of the drum. In this case, since the surface of the yarn layer is pressed by the drum surface and a slip is caused therebetween, friction is caused on the yarn per se to degrade the quality of the yarn, and as the yarn end is pressed by the drum, the yarn end is intruded into the surface of the yarn layer on the package and a mistake is caused at the time of pick finding when the yarn knotting operation is performed.